mulling new phone ...suggestions

I'm still using my iphone 1st gen 8 gb after nearly 5 years & it still works okBattery still last whole day with email & browsing

So far I'm not too excited about the iphone 5 & was contemplating a jump to the samsung galaxy note 2i like the large screen size. My main concern would be syncing with my imac contacts etcDon't have too many apps i care about & they are also on my ipad anyway.As long as i can read pdfs & epubs & carry my media avi/mp4 & audio I should be set

So.

1.Anyone here used a galaxy note & did you have any issues with it ? connectivity or otherwise

2.Hows the battery life ?

3.is the email client it comes with any good ? i use gmail & my own imaps server.

4.any build quality issues ?

5.hows the vid conf capability ? I know there's no facetime so skype will suffice

While I don't have any device-specific answers, I will say that I strongly encourage you to think less about syncing with your computer and more about getting an email account that supports ActiveSync (like GMAIL, which you have) so that all of your devices can sync with THAT instead of relying on your computer. This enables all devices to sync regardless of the status of any of the devices (i.e. no offline device will interrupt your sync).

What are you wanting to sync? The usual mail, contacts, calendars? GMAIL will do that, iCloud too (I'd stay with GMAIL though).

Basically every single good mobile OS out there relies heavily on cloud services to some degree and you're only going to complicate things by segmenting services instead of consolidating them...

Half the reason I love my smartphone so much is cause all my "info" is readily available from any webbrowser and there's no need to have to plug in and sync.

Regarding your concerns about syncing, you should really should just be looking at android compatibility with ical/itunes since there's really nothing specific with the Note 2 in that regard compared to every other android phone out there... I'm sure there's tonnes of android users with macs so it shouldn't be that unique of an issue.

Anyone else ? I'd appreciate any input here from people who have used the note or note 2 & are on osx

You said you already had Gmail though, so it's a bit late for that.

This is becoming a unique issue because device to device direct syncing is archaic. It's silly to bother with when the alternatives work much more reliably, require no interaction and are much easier.

Yeah, especially when you're looking at an Android device, that attitude is a bit silly. If you trust Google enough to use their email and are considering a phone based on an OS they manage, you've already given them your data whether you like it or not.

This is becoming a unique issue because device to device direct syncing is archaic.

Only if we let it.

I'm not buying this weather-themed grab at all my data. Yes, I use Gmail and Google Calendar for a few things (not many), and sync directly between iTunes and my iPhone for everything else, including most of my calendars and all my contacts. After I moved and I was waiting for my broadband to be connected, I was still able to sync, and no government or hacker can get at my data behind my back.

Nobody cares about your data man. If Google wants to pull stats from my poorly-typed messages to serve me an ad that's better tailored to me and all I have to do is use their free, effective, convenient and reliable service, well...OK.

If you don't want to send your data to Google, the iPhone works without problems and will sync to your outlook mail and contacts via iTunes. It's not as elegant as iCloud or Android but thems the breaks.

If you really don't want Google to track you, you don't a Google account for anything than downloading apps. Use a dummy account just for the sake of access to the Play Store, and use Play Store cards bought at a brick and mortar store.

This is becoming a unique issue because device to device direct syncing is archaic.

Only if we let it.

I'm not buying this weather-themed grab at all my data. Yes, I use Gmail and Google Calendar for a few things (not many), and sync directly between iTunes and my iPhone for everything else, including most of my calendars and all my contacts. After I moved and I was waiting for my broadband to be connected, I was still able to sync, and no government or hacker can get at my data behind my back.

Let Mat Honan's story be a warning to us all.

Hey, you can be paranoid all you like. I just don't see much point when you're already giving them some data. Really, how much value is there in your appointments and contacts? Give me a fucking break.

Mat Honan got pwned through his Twitter account, AFAIK - and there are known issues with Twitter's login security. If you want, you can set up two factor auth for your Google account, and be all MI6 about it.

If you want a modern smartphone, and you want to use it like one, you are going to have to put some of your digital life in the "cloud".

Your knowledge doesn't reach very far: the hacker got access to his AppleID by giving Apple the last four digits of Mat's credit card which he was able to discover through Amazon. The ultimate goal was to get to his Twitter account.

steelghost wrote:

If you want a modern smartphone, and you want to use it like one, you are going to have to put some of your digital life in the "cloud".

Completely untrue, unless you count having email as a digital life in the cloud. I sync my contacts and calendars between my iPhone and my Mac through iTunes, so the changes take some time to propagate. That's the only little compromise I have to live with for not using any Google or iCloud or Dropbox services. Or maybe the weather is cloudier than I thought: I do use Google Reader.

To the OP, I agree that an older iPhone is probably your best best, syncing with iTunes is going to be a lot easier than trying to persuade Android to do what you want of it, which I suspect will not be that simple - Android is very much set up around you having a Google account of some sort.

I would still like some input to my questions above on the build & quality of phone. I do like the looks of the note 2

1.My main interest is keeping my contacts & phone in sync. I use snow leopardNot worried about mail since I use my own server so I know it will stay in sync.

2.I use gmail for some stuff but 99.999% of my personal email goes through my own mailserver & as long as the phone has a decent imap client that works with a non-google imap server i'm ok Nothing against google per se. I'm not in favor of in depth profiling. Just a personal preference

i have no real experience with skype on the note2, but from what I've seen with the nexus S and iphone 4/4S, the skype video quality is bad compared to facetime with the iPhone. Some how facetime is less stuttery, has clearer audio, and the interface is also easier to use with facetime. This is with the same wifi internet connection too.

Echoing what others have said, if you are not comfortable with cloud services, a smartphone is probably not a good choice for you. You can kludge and hack your way around it, but you will have problems. And mobile OS's are only going to get more and more engrained with their respective cloud services. Trying to fight that is just going to be a frustrating experience.

If you really want to avoid the cloud I would look into feature phone that support the features you need, there are still some out there.

It's true for the iphone now. We don't know how long Apple will allow this to continue to work. My bet would be they'll force all iPhone users on to iCloud sooner or later.

EDIT: I was replying to iljitsch with this comment - my point being that Apple are known for moving things in the direction they regard as "forward" without worrying too much about losing old facilities & abilities. In a "post-PC" world (as they see it), local syncing is, IMO, likely to be a victim of this attitude.

There is absolutely no reason to think Apple is going to force people to use iCloud. It may look like they're pushing iCloud onto users, but if you decline, they don't pester you at all.

But for some reason that I don't understand many people hate connecting their phone to their computer to sync so apparently Apple felt the need to provide them with an alternative so they don't lose all their data when something bad happens to that phone.

Does anyone have any information on how all of this works in the Windows world?

Apple make more money from the iPhone than anything else. They've enabled "no PC" activations of new iPhones and other iDevices. They've set up (presumably at considerable cost) iCloud to enable you to stream all your media and whatever else via 3/4G or WiFi, and back up all your 'stuff' in the same way. To me these are all enabling moves to allow iOS devices to work without a PC - and generally speaking, things that are not 'necessary' get removed after a while, in Apple's world.

We're going to have to agree to disagree and let the OP make his / her own decisions, but my own view is that Apple absolutely are heading in that direction, albeit probably not "cutting the cord" for another year or two.

An iPhone 4 / 4S would probably suit the OP well in the mean time.

I'm pretty sure iCloud works fairly similarly on Windows, but is by no means compulsory (at present).

But for some reason that I don't understand many people hate connecting their phone to their computer to sync

Gosh I love sync. It's one less "to do". If you have kids, a busy family or social life having one less "to do" that gets done automagically is just absolutely wonderful.

Now with iCloud I almost never ever hook my iphone up to itunes. I think the last time I did was to unlock it.

And... For me I've always had issues transferring large volumes of images by USB on my 3GS. I often had to resort to the excelent iphone explorer windows application to get pictures off as almost every other app would lock up when transfering 1000's of pictures from the iphone.

iljitsch wrote:

Does anyone have any information on how all of this works in the Windows world?

You install the icloud application on you PC, tell it where you want your pictures to go and you are done. Then after an event, or just because, you point lightroom or whatever at that directory and process them along with the pictures from your real camera. Easy Peasy.

BUT BUT BUT BUT

For some reason apple does not let all of this work for videos (or is that fixed in IOS6?). That's a real pain in the but so every once in a great while I suck the videos off from my iphone. Typical apple. 90% solution that is good enough that you use it and put up with the 10% part that sucks.

Regarding the new phone.... suggestions.

My 3GS is slowly falling a part. I keep fixiing it but it's also a dog under IOS 5 and 6. The upgrade to the iphone 5 is a "no brainer" but when you think about plotting down $600+ for an unlocked phone gosh you have to look at the alternatives.

the note looks slick, I love the camera in the Nokia Pureview etc but then I worry about switching app ecosystems (we have an ipad and two touches), loosing the cloud sync (though the nokia having a USB hard drive mode should help with the photo transfers) and so on.

How have iphone users handled switching? No big deal or the worst choice ever?

You won't be able to use a USB cable to sync contacts from a computer to your phone if you don't have Exchange. Instead, it's a two-part sync process that involves transferring your contacts to a Windows Live account, and then syncing your contacts from Windows Live onto your phone. Then, Windows Live uses your cellular data or Wi-Fi connection to continue syncing your contacts from Windows Live to your phone. This means your information is always current and backed up

You can use a Google account for this, it can also pull contacts from LinkedIn or Facebook.

Windows Phone Doesn't support CalDav or CardDav, so you need to use ActiveSync for calendaring, this is presumably how the contacts work with all the providers.

Email can use plain old IMAP.

If you wanted to run Windows Phone without using a "cloud" provider, you'd need to set up your own Exchange server, by the look of things.

I'm still using my iphone 1st gen 8 gb after nearly 5 years & it still works okBattery still last whole day with email & browsing

So far I'm not too excited about the iphone 5 & was contemplating a jump to the samsung galaxy note 2i like the large screen size. My main concern would be syncing with my imac contacts etcDon't have too many apps i care about & they are also on my ipad anyway.As long as i can read pdfs & epubs & carry my media avi/mp4 & audio I should be set

So.

1.Anyone here used a galaxy note & did you have any issues with it ? connectivity or otherwise

2.Hows the battery life ?

3.is the email client it comes with any good ? i use gmail & my own imaps server.

4.any build quality issues ?

5.hows the vid conf capability ? I know there's no facetime so skype will suffice

8.if you have used this phone or earlier model, any particular apps you would like to recommend ? i do use goodreader on the ipad/iphone

Thanks for any feedback

I have an SGS3 and use OSX Lion. I don't sync locally to my PC but I do sync to my corporate Exchange server as well as Google. You have your own IMAP server in which case you should be able to do OTA syncing to that without issue. A couple of things to note, on OSX USB connectivity is hit or miss. I think there is a new Android File Transfer app available but regardless of MTP or PTP my Mac doesn't see my G3. I just use AirDroid to get around that, Samsung has their own WiFi sync client Kies but that also has issues on Macs. The default email client is decent I actually don't use Gmail but I've heard that the Gmail client is also very good. Some people will tell you that the build quality of the SGS3 and by extension Note 2 is poor due to the use of plastics etc. Having said that your getting a HUGE device that is quite light weight for it's size, sure the back of the device is a flimsy piece of plastic but really does it matter? Especially if you use a case? Don't do video conferencing but video playback of Youtube is really good. Voice Nav and voice texting is good as long as you have signal. Google now is quite amazing at figuring out what I'm saying and even getting contextual spellings correct for local landmarks etc.

As for apps. Like I mentioned before, AirDroid works well for WiFi syncing of data. iSyncr is good for getting your iTunes music to the device, just make a playlist in iTunes and sync it to the SD card it also does incremental syncing so if your syncing 20Gb of music and need to stop halfway the program is smart enough to pickup where it left off. I prefer GoSMS mainly for the emoji integration with iPhones.

You won't be able to use a USB cable to sync contacts from a computer to your phone if you don't have Exchange. Instead, it's a two-part sync process that involves transferring your contacts to a Windows Live account, and then syncing your contacts from Windows Live onto your phone. Then, Windows Live uses your cellular data or Wi-Fi connection to continue syncing your contacts from Windows Live to your phone. This means your information is always current and backed up

You can use a Google account for this, it can also pull contacts from LinkedIn or Facebook.

Windows Phone Doesn't support CalDav or CardDav, so you need to use ActiveSync for calendaring, this is presumably how the contacts work with all the providers.

Email can use plain old IMAP.

If you wanted to run Windows Phone without using a "cloud" provider, you'd need to set up your own Exchange server, by the look of things.

Yah, the Windows Phone might be the most explicit of all the smartphone platforms as a conveyance to the cloud. There's no local storage of contacts at all. It all must be stored on a service somewhere else.

To think that I actually switched from a feature phone that I was very happy with to a not-so-great Nokia "smart" phone because it was just too damn hard to get my contacts from my computer on that old phone...

I use exchange to sync with corporate Outlook, so I never sync my phone to my PCs.

Quote:

8.if you have used this phone or earlier model, any particular apps you would like to recommend ? i do use goodreader on the ipad/iphoneThanks for any feedback

One thing that I do not like about Android is that the variety of apps is not as good as what you get for Apple.(for example if you have kids, the difference is night and day, there is just so much more stuff on iOs).

For everyone else. Thanks for all the input. My main reason from moving away from an iphone is simple. I'm on t-mobile for the last 10 years & I didnt want to go thru the hassle of buying another iphone & jailbreaking itMy 1st gen iphone still works ok & is now almost 5 years old & so I was looking at the note II. I saw the note one & dont mind the size plus it supports a lot more video codecs than the iphone.I already have an ipad so loss of facetime is not an issue. Skype if it works ok is good enough for emergency calls.Like I mentioned i run my own imaps so email is not an issue & as long as contacts sync with kies or some other util then i'm good to goIf bookmarks can sync then fine... if not then not a big deal

i found a set of equivalent apps& noted them down for anyone who's interestedThe ? indicate I havent found one yet or don't know of one as yet

For everyone else. Thanks for all the input. My main reason from moving away from an iphone is simple. I'm on t-mobile for the last 10 years & I didnt want to go thru the hassle of buying another iphone & jailbreaking itMy 1st gen iphone still works ok & is now almost 5 years old & so I was looking at the note II. I saw the note one & dont mind the size plus it supports a lot more video codecs than the iphone.I already have an ipad so loss of facetime is not an issue. Skype if it works ok is good enough for emergency calls.Like I mentioned i run my own imaps so email is not an issue & as long as contacts sync with kies or some other util then i'm good to goIf bookmarks can sync then fine... if not then not a big deal

i found a set of equivalent apps& noted them down for anyone who's interestedThe ? indicate I havent found one yet or don't know of one as yet

1. Google. I took the time to upload all my contacts to GMail (yes I realize I said I sync to my Exchange server but I should have been clearer. I don't sync contacts -- I just don't want the entire company on my phone). 2. S Memo blows, use Evernote. Actually most of the 'S' apps suck on the GS3, on the Note2 they are integrated with the S-Pen so for that alone they may be better. You'll just have to see. 11. AirVideo. I soooooo wish they would hurry up and make an Android app! I'm waiting on this as well.

Once good thing is that your coming to Android at a good time. The Play store finally! gained the ability to delete apps from your list. I realize this sounds like a no brainer but until the update every app you d/l'ed to try stayed in your list of apps forever. So now when your looking for an SSH app and d/l 3 or 4 you can remove the ones you didn't like.

For everyone else. Thanks for all the input. My main reason from moving away from an iphone is simple. I'm on t-mobile for the last 10 years & I didnt want to go thru the hassle of buying another iphone & jailbreaking itMy 1st gen iphone still works ok & is now almost 5 years old & so I was looking at the note II. I saw the note one & dont mind the size plus it supports a lot more video codecs than the iphone.I already have an ipad so loss of facetime is not an issue. Skype if it works ok is good enough for emergency calls.Like I mentioned i run my own imaps so email is not an issue & as long as contacts sync with kies or some other util then i'm good to goIf bookmarks can sync then fine... if not then not a big deal

i found a set of equivalent apps& noted them down for anyone who's interestedThe ? indicate I havent found one yet or don't know of one as yet

1. Google. I took the time to upload all my contacts to GMail (yes I realize I said I sync to my Exchange server but I should have been clearer. I don't sync contacts -- I just don't want the entire company on my phone). 2. S Memo blows, use Evernote. Actually most of the 'S' apps suck on the GS3, on the Note2 they are integrated with the S-Pen so for that alone they may be better. You'll just have to see. 11. AirVideo. I soooooo wish they would hurry up and make an Android app! I'm waiting on this as well.

Once good thing is that your coming to Android at a good time. The Play store finally! gained the ability to delete apps from your list. I realize this sounds like a no brainer but until the update every app you d/l'ed to try stayed in your list of apps forever. So now when your looking for an SSH app and d/l 3 or 4 you can remove the ones you didn't like.

Not sure if you've checked recently, but Plex fully supports categorizing/organizing videos that don't fall under the TV/Movie category easily. You can easily setup a "library" that points at a directory (or directories) full of random videos and you can traverse that library via folder (old school method) or by name or by add-date or whatever you want. Basically the airvideo style of file organization.